Montserrat was nothing like what I expected. While all of the monasteries that we had thus far visited had been serene and peaceful, Montserrat was noisy and crowded. It has one road, that works its way up from the valley floor to make a long sinuous loop through the cluster of hotels that have grown up alongside the basilica. That loop is lined with cars, while the big parking lot around the corner is filled, and buses pull into their allocated slots to disgorge their loads of passengers.The monastery was founded (by Benedictines) in 1025 in honor of an appearance of the Virgin on the mountain. It was almost completely destroyed in 1811 by Napoleon's soldiers. When it was rebuilt in the 19th century, it turned into a monumental example of European kitsch, and is now not only a pilgrimage center, but also a tourist trap.
It's tucked onto a tiny ledge of the mountain of Montserrat, with some buildings backed up against the living rock, while others are perched over the abyss. The name means serrated mountain, and the monastery's symbol is an 'M', formed to looked like a pair of peaks, with a medieval saw cutting into them. The rocks are truly awesome.
The mountain is traced with trails, all the way from the train station at the bottom to the highest point. In addition, there is a cable car that runs between the train station and the monastery, and two funiculars that both start at the monastery, one running up and the other down.One of the Cantigas de Santa Maria is set in Montserrat, and tells of the Virgin's intervention in diverting a falling rock so that it missed the church.
The basilica is overly ornate, not only with paint and gilt, but with nooks and crannies and statuary that fragments the sound. It easily had the worst acoustics of any place that we sang, at least to the performers. When the boys choir sang, however, the sound was as clear as a bell from the audience.
During the day, when the day trippers are there, there seems to be an unending stream of services running in the basilica. (Our concert was cut down to an hour in order to fit in between them.) The Black Madonna lives in a shrine behind and above the altar, and there is a steady stream of pilgrims visiting her. The line passes through a passageway cut through the shrines on the right side of the church, past the choir, out of sight up a flight of stairs, and then reappears in the window through which she looks out over the altar. (If you visit her before breakfast, however, there are no crowds - just the cleaning crew.)After the last public service of the day, a bit after 7:00, the last of the day trippers evacuate, and the sidewalks roll themselves up to sleep. The semi-feral cats creep out of their hiding places to play and eat, while the restless overnight guests aimlessly wander the streets of Montserrat. Many of the hotel employees gather in the square to sing rounds until the church bells toll 11:00.
This is where the Llibre Vermell was written, and where it now resides (after a brief sojourn in France, where it fortuitously missed the destruction of the monastery).
